Quote Originally Posted by Zevox View Post
Well, tried out the Fury today. When things work, I think it's my favorite Adept since the Asari - her combination of abilities is just plain a lot of fun. I am having some trouble making things work, though. Trying to get close for Annihilation Field -> Throw combos is getting me killed more often than not, even with Drain on AF. The radius on AF is just too small I think - I need to be close enough that enemies with instant-kills could use them on me for it to take effect. And worse, if I back away, the priming effect from AF goes away.
The radius increase on detonations does noticably increase the primin distance as well. And if you're relying on detonations, you can almost skip the passive entirely; it doesn't increase your output significantly at all, whereas defensive fitness does increase your survivability.

On the very bright side, the Fury seems able to handle Phantoms easily. Phantoms don't seem to activate their anti-power shield in response to Dark Channel or Annihilation Field, so doing Dark Channel -> AF detonation kills them nice and easy.
Phantoms cannot raise their barrier against instant execution techniques. So if you surprise one with reave, overload or energy stain they will get hit by it. Some will put up the barrier anyway waiting for the next power, but then you just shoot them in the face.

A question - does the Drain effect on AF apply to its detonation, or only to the main field effect? I wasn't able to determine that from my games today.
Hmm. Gonna go with Dhaever and say that if AF detonates itself, you get barrier from it. However, if the enemy is close enough to be hit by the detonation but was not within the field, you do not gain barrier. It specifies that theyust be within the field and take damage to their barrier/shield, not that this power recharges barriers hen it hits other barriers.

I did try it with the Shredder mod once, and it didn't seem to help much, but that may be because I only had the mod at rank 2 at the time. I intend to try again once it reaches rank 5.
I use the high velocity barrel, which gives me both a damage boot and a armor reduction, so it's much more pronounced. Remember, on silver the difference between shredder mod V and no mod is only 22 damage... If the gun does that much per round. With just a shredder mod it becomes about as strong against armor as the geth SMG. Against a dragoon you'll be fine. Against an atlas you shouldn't be relying on it.

Yet how can you not? What you're suggesting here is basically that different sets of classes are defined totally differently. Where Soldiers, Adepts, and Engineers are defined by the type of powers they use (combat, biotic, tech), Vanguards and Infiltrators are defined instead by their role. (I honestly have no clue where Sentinels fit into this theory you're suggesting, as I cannot see any common thread to that class anymore based on the multiplayer Sentinels.) That's inherently confusing, and poor design if you ask me.

Zevox
Classes can be defined multiple ways. My point is that the current system is poorly understood as a mash-up of two working systems, and the tension between these two different methods is what is causing such anomalies as the drell vanguard. I'm not saying use every system, I'm saying you're already using too many and infuse parts of one as bein parts of the other. They have taken steps to correct this over time; it's your house whether you think they are messing up the old system or finally implementing what they have bumblingly gone for the entire time.

There is also a caveat. Mass effect one is about the mass effect universe, here's mass effect two and three are collectively "The ballad of Shepard". Mass Effect 1 required a simulationist feel. If biotic nodules of eezo in the CNS could do things along a certain line, then everyone with those eezo modules had access to basically the same amount of effects. In this, the vanguard really was just a biotic who focused on combat more than straight biotic mastery. They had no access to the most intricate biotic powers (such as increasing the density of spacetime to freeze an opponent in time for a short while), but they did I've fruits from their laboratory in combat arts; more weapon proficiency and a knack for supplementing close quarters combat with biotic effects.

In mass effect 2/3, it's more a game to tell a specific story. It's required that the classes be meaningfully different. A vanguard couldn't just be a less optimized adept, because that messes with game balance. And so in these two games, the separate division of class function rather than class building block is more germane.

I feel it's perfectly acceptable to view ME1, and ME2/3 as separate universes. Separate games in the same EU; one is a realistic RPG, the other is a futuristic shoot-em-up. They require different approaches, but what's right (or wrong) for one cannot hold for the other.